News & Press Releases

Perhaps the most visible sign of Buffalo’s changing fortunes are its new apartments, which turn up in empty warehouses, former municipal buildings and longtime parking lots converted into much-needed housing. In the last decade, 224 multifamily projects — encompassing 10,150 apartments, most of them rentals, the equivalent of about $3 billion in investment — have opened or are underway, according to the office of Mayor Byron W. Brown.

Applications opened Thursday for the annual 43North startup contest and this year, all the finalist companies will be competing for the same thing: a $1 million prize.

Some businesses are also likely to begin to move to the area; the green hydrogen startup Plug Power, for example, is building a new $290 million plant near Buffalo, in part because it can access affordable hydropower there.

“In the next 25 to 50 years there will be a lot of people moving to these regions,” Nicholas Rajkovich, an architecture professor at the University at Buffalo said.

“The idea of a technology community all in one spot has a lot of gravity,” said Mike Wisler, chief information officer at M&T Bank. “We know that innovation happens at a higher pace and for a longer duration when those who are innovating have a physical presence.”

“Buffalo has this national and maybe infamous reputation for our weather,” said Greg Pokriki, a Be in Buffalo public relations specialist. “But what people don’t understand is that it’s not a natural disaster. We move the snow and we keep business going.”

“The reason we target (second-stage companies) is because typically they have proven products; their business model works; they’ve established that they can make sales and that there is value to what they’re doing,” said Olivia Hill, senior business development strategist with Invest Buffalo Niagara who runs the Economic Gardening program.

Invest Buffalo Niagara President and CEO Tom Kucharski said, “We are excited to welcome La Fermière to Western New York. La Fermière joins the region’s booming food and dairy processing cluster, one of the strongest in the nation thanks to its strong workforce, affordability, proximity to major markets, supply chain access, and more. Its decision also validates our ability to attract international companies and act as a natural front door to the North American market.”

Major expansion projects by a pair of Buffalo Niagara businesses – Moog Inc. and AML Rightsource – are expected to create more than 860 new jobs in the region, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Friday afternoon. “We’re confident because everything we thought about Buffalo has turned out to be true,” Ewing said.